Madam Speaker, we are switching to the mountain time zone shift, and with that I will be sharing my time with the member for Edmonton Strathcona.
This is a really great debate, and I want to congratulate the NDP for putting this forward, because it is something we actually have not really talked about in Parliament. We are debating the specific issue with the specific university and its insolvency, its funding model and how we proceed forward, but it is really a flashpoint of a larger issue that has been brewing for several years, which was really disrupted this year by the pandemic. What is really interesting about this debate is that I am not sure there is necessarily a partisan line on this. I actually think we have an opportunity here, as parliamentarians, to really think about workforce development in Canada in the context of what our post-secondary education system looks like writ large.
Since we are on the late show here tonight and this sitting is remarkably well attended by my dozen or so colleagues who are here tonight, I will give a bit of information about myself and my interest in this topic. Prior to entering politics, I spent close to a decade in senior roles in academic administration at two of Canada's top universities, the University of Manitoba and the University of Calgary, so I did see first-hand both the challenges that universities face and the opportunities they bring to the Canadian economy.
We really cannot talk about post-COVID recovery without talking about the role of post-secondary institutions and what the role of the federal government is in supporting that vision, without really looking at post-secondary education writ large. Many of the issues that my colleagues have raised tonight are with regard to the need to ensure that every Canadian has viable and tangible access to post-secondary education. This is something I do not think we have ever achieved in Canada. When I think about Laurentian University and many universities that service rural and remote communities in Canada, they are providing services to students in a language of choice, which is very important, but also to indigenous communities that have been traditionally underserved, pigeonholed and forced into learning in a certain way that might not align with their context.
It is really important that we talk about these issues, but we also need to talk about the broader challenges that post-secondary education is facing right now. I read a really interesting article from RBC Human Capital. I think it really outlined the inflection point that Canadian post-secondary education is facing right now. In March of last year, in both colleges and universities in Canada, about two million students were moved from the classroom onto online learning in a matter of weeks, and that was remarkable, but it really did create a disruptive force in how post-secondary education was delivered.
I am not necessarily saying that in a bad way, but here is the reality, the stats that are in this article: “Nearly 1.6 billion learners have been affected by national school closures” globally, and “91% of the world's students were displaced from the classroom” during the pandemic. “In Canada, more than 7 million students had to shift their learning style”.
Some of the challenges that have been highlighted here are these: “Canadian institutions historically lacked the resources or expertise to fully develop online learning”; “Canada's advantage in international student attraction is at risk”, and I want to talk about international students in a second; “Digital spending comprised only 2.5% of global education expenditures pre-lockdown”.
Some of the key questions this report asked were these: “Will the explosion of remote-based learning lead to more options for students?”; “Which learners are most vulnerable to disruption [that is, which students or people whom we want to reach would be most negatively affected by these changes]?”; “Will online learning in Canada still appeal to international students?”; “Can job-ready skills [for example trades] be cultivated through online learning?”; “Can learning on a massive scale become more personalized?”; “Are post-secondary institutions at an inflection point for their business model?”
That is where I want to start. When I worked at both the University of Manitoba and the University of Calgary, I did a lot of work in sponsored research and tech transfer. A lot of the operation of universities is focused on research and commercialization. That is great. We want to have research-intensive universities in Canada, but what does the shift mean? What does it mean for universities that may not be research-intensive? Are we now seeing perhaps a delineation between research-intensive universities and teaching-intensive universities? Is that happening? Does our funding model need to change to support that?
One of the things in the report that I mentioned that is critical for us to address as parliamentarians is whether we can reach every student in Canada in a meaningful way. Infrastructure issues, such as rural broadband and wireless, have been a barrier to accessing education not just for people in rural and remote communities or on reserves, but also in urban centres. The Internet in Canada is now in crisis mode, and this is affecting our post-secondary education system as well. These are questions that nobody really wants to ask.
I want to underscore that I certainly support the services that Laurentian University provides. Given the tax dollars that go into post-secondary education, we have to be asking what business model best serves the needs of Canadians. That is something people of every political stripe have an opportunity to talk about. My argument in this debate tonight would be that we should avoid necessarily being attached to one form of rigid dogma on what works. We have to start with the student or learner as the focus of the services delivered and the funding models we are supporting, but we must also tie that to the vision for Canada's future workforce to ensure that we have platforms that are nimble and provide services to train that workforce.
I said that I wanted to talk about international students. International students provide a lot of revenue to Canadian universities right now. Many universities have reached out to me during the pandemic to talk about the fact that they have lost revenue. We have to talk about the elephant in the room: Should we be relying on international students to bolster a business model for universities? Many people say that the shift to online learning is here to stay in some way, shape or form, and that universities are going to have to be more competitive to get top students and teachers. However, universities also have to think about how they allow universal access to students. A well-educated population means that we have better economic growth, more innovation, better social determinants, less discrimination and more opportunities for marginalized communities. There are all sorts of questions that we could be asking in Parliament.
I understand that this university is in a crisis right now and we have to deal with that for a variety of reasons, but that has to be done in a broader context. Many of my constituents say they are paying tuition for in-class learning now, but they have been online for a year and ask if that is fair. That is something we should ask. We should be asking if it is fair to be demanding online learning if somebody does not have a safe place to learn online. There are privileged assumptions that go into the capacity to have online learning as well.
I would encourage my colleagues to look at this from a broader perspective. I hope we can come together as a Parliament and really be a world leader as a country in the shift of post-secondary education post-COVID.